July 17, 2012

Andrew Goodman professed his love for a teenage boy as recently as last week. Thanks to a sweetheart plea deal -- approved by the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office -- he could be back on the streets by September.

The question wasn’t meant to be rhetorical; we really want to know how a guy who was initially hit with 48 pervert-related felonies after admiting to sexually abusing two young boys — before brazenly declaring his undying love for one of them at his sentencing hearing last week — gets a mere two years behind bars.

Other media outlets have blamed the judge in the case, Martin Murphy, for the sweetheart deal that could potentially have Goodman back on the streets — and around your kids — by September. But plea deals — even those of the sweetheart variety — don’t exist without the approval of a prosecutor, who in this case works for the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office, which has refused to give an explanation as to why Goodman was let so easily off the hook.

We’ve contacted the Brooklyn D.A.’s Office twice since Friday, both times asking for a simple explanation of the deal. We were ignored each time.

Just to be clear, we’re not saying the Brooklyn D.A.’s Office is necessarily to blame for Goodman’s slap on the wrist — shitty plea deals happen sometimes, especially when prosecutors don’t think they have enough evidence to get a conviction on a more serious charge.

Under Arizona law, the age of the victim plays an enormous role in the severity of the punishment for their abusers — and 15 is the age at which the punishment gets much less severe. Because it couldn’t be proven that the victim was 14 at the time of the abuse, the county attorney says he was forced to cut the elder a deal — even though the perv admitted to the abuse long before a deal was ever presented to him.

In Goodman’s case, in addition to professing his love for the victim in open court as recently as last week, his
neighbors have video footage of him sneaking up to 11 underage boys in
and out of his 15th Street home in “predawn hours.” In other words — and if pervert history tells us anything — this probably won’t be the last time Brooklyn D.A. Charles Hynes hears the name Andrew Goodman, and if/when he re-offends, Hynes probably will have much more explaining to do.

Oh — just to reiterate — Goodman could be a free man as soon as September, so hide yo’ kids!.